PART OF THE ORPHREY OF THE SYON COPE.
English, 13th century.
Vincent Brooks Day & Son, Lith.
This handsome cope, so very remarkable on account of its comparative perfect preservation, is one of the most beautiful among the several liturgic vestments of the olden period anywhere to be now found in christendom. If by all lovers of mediæval antiquity it will be looked upon as so valuable a specimen in art of its kind and time, for every Englishman it ought to have a double interest, showing, as it does, such a splendid and instructive example of the “Opus Anglicum,” or English work, which won for itself so wide a fame, and was so eagerly sought after throughout the whole of Europe during the middle ages.
Beginning with the middle of this cope, we have, at the lowermost part, St. Michael overcoming Satan; suggested by those verses of St. John, “And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; ... and that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan,” &c.—Rev. xii. 7, 9, to which may be added the words of the English Golden Legend: “The fourth victorye is that that tharchaungell Mychaell shal have of Antecryst whan he shall flee hym. Than Michaell the grete prynce shall aryse, as it is sayd Danielis xii, He shall aryse for them that ben chosen as an helper and a protectour and shall strongely stande ayenst Antecryst ... and at the last he (Antichrist) shall mount upon the mount of Olyvete, and whan he shall be ... entred in to that place where our Lorde ascended Mychaell shall come and shall flee hym, of whiche victorye is understonden after saynt Gregorye that whyche is sayd in thapocalipsis, the batayll is made in heven,” (fol. cclxx. b.). As he tramples upon the writhing demon, the archangel, barefoot, and clad in golden garments, and wearing wings of gold and silver feathers, thrusts down his throat and out through his neck a lance, the shaft of which is tipped with a golden cross crosslet, while from his left arm he lets down an azure shield blazoned with a silver cross. The next quatrefoil above this one is filled in with the Crucifixion. Here the Blessed Virgin Mary is arrayed in a green tunic, and a golden mantle lined with vair or costly white fur, and her head is kerchiefed, and her uplifted hands are sorrowfully clasped; St. John—whose dress is all of gold—with a mournful look, is on the left, at the foot of the cross upon which the Saviour, wrought all in silver—a most unusual thing,—with a cloth of gold wrapped about His loins, is fastened by three, not four, nails. The way in which the ribs are shown and the chest thrown up in the person of our Lord is quite after old English feelings on the subject. In the book of sermons called the “Festival” it is said, with strong emphasis, how “Cristes body was drawen on the crosse as a skyn of parchement on a harow, so that all hys bonys myght be tolde,” fol. xxxiii. In the highest quatrefoil of all is figured the Redeemer uprisen, crowned as a king and seated on a cushioned throne. Resting upon His knee, and steadied by His left hand, is the mund or ball representing the earth—the world. Curiously enough, this mund is distinguished into three parts, of which the larger one—an upper horizontal hemicycle—is coloured crimson (now faded to a brownish tint), but the lower hemicycle is divided vertically in two, of which one portion is coloured green, the other white or silvered. The likelihood is, that such markings were meant to show the then only known three parts of our globe; for if the elements were hereon intended, there would have been four quarters—fire, water, earth, and heaven; instead, too, of the upper half being crimsoned, it would have been tinted, like the heavens, blue. Furthermore, the symbolism of those days would put, as we here see, this mund under the sovereign hand of the Saviour, as setting forth the Psalmist’s words, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein;” while its round shape—itself the emblem of endlessness—must naturally bring to mind that everlasting Being—the Alpha and the Omega spoken of in the Apocalypse—the beginning and the end, Who is and Who was, and Who is to come—the Almighty. Stretching forth His right arm, with His thumb and first two fingers upraised—emblem of one God in three persons—He is giving His blessing to His mother. Clothed in a green tunic, over which falls a golden mantle lined with vair or white fur, she is seated on the throne beside Him, with hands upraised in prayer. It ought not to be overlooked, that while the Blessed Virgin Mary wears ornamented shoes, our Lord, like His messengers, the angels and apostles, is barefoot. To show that as He had said to those whom He sent before His face, that they were to carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, so therefore, is He Himself here and elsewhere figured shoeless. Though already in heaven, still, out of reverence towards Him, the head of His mother is kerchiefed, as it would have been were she yet on earth and present at the sacred liturgy. John Beleth, an Englishman, who, in A.D. 1162, a short century before this cope was worked, wrote a book upon the Church Ritual, lays it down as an unbending rule that, while men are to hear the Gospel bare-headed, all women, whatever be their age, rank, or condition, must never be uncovered, and if a young maiden be so her mother or any other female ought to cast a cloth of some sort over her head;—“Viri, itaque ... aperto capite Evangelium audire debent.... Mulieres vero debent audire Evangelium tecto et velato capite etiamsi sit virgo, propter pomum vetitum. Et si eveniat ut virgo capite sit aperto, ut velamen non habeat, necesse est, ut mater, aut quævis alia mulier capiti ejus pannum vel simile quippiam imponat.” Divin. Offic. Explic. c. xxxix. p. 507.
The next two subjects now to be described are—one, that on the right hand, the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the other, to the left, her burial. To fully understand the traditionary treatment of both, it would be well to give the words of Caxton’s English translation of the “Golden Legend,” from the edition “emprynted at London, in Fletestrete at ye sygne of ye Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde, in ye yere of our Lorde M.CCCCXVII,” a scarce and costly work not within easy reach. “We fynde in a booke sente to saynt Johan the evangelys, or elles the boke whiche is sayd to be apocryphum ... in what maner the Assumpcyon of the blessyd vyrgyn saynt Marye was made ... upon a daye whan all the apostles were spradde through the worlde in prechynge, the gloryous vyrgyne was gretely esprysed and enbraced wyth desyre to be wyth her sone Ihesu Cryste ... and an aungell came tofore her with grete lyghte and salewed her honourably as the mother of his Lorde, sayenge, All hayle blessyd Marie.... Loo here is a bowe of palme of paradyse, lady, ... whiche thou shalte commaunde to be borne tofore thy bere, for thy soule shall be taken from thy body the thyrde daye nexte folowynge; and thy Sone abydeth thee His honourable moder.... All the apostles shall assemble this daye to thee and shall make to thee noble exequyes at thy passynge, and in the presence of theym all thou shalte gyve up thy spyryte. For he that broughte the prophete (Habacuc) by an heer from Judee to Babylon (Daniel xiv. 35, according to the Vulgate) may without doubte sodeynly in an houre brynge the apostles to thee.... And it happened as Saynt Johan the euangelyst preched in Ephesym the heven sodeynly thondred and a whyte cloude toke hym up and brought hym tofore the gate of the blessyd vyrgyne Marye at Jerusalem (who) sayd to hym, ... Loo I am called of thy mayster and my God, ... I have herde saye that the Jewes have made a counseyll and sayd, let us abyde brethren unto the tyme that she that bare Jhesu Crist be deed, and thenne incontynente we shall take her body and shall caste it in to the fyre and brenne it. Thou therefore take this palme and bere it tofore the bere whan ye shall bere my body to the sepulcre. Than sayd Johan, O wolde God that all my brethren the apostles were here that we myght make thyn exequyes covenable as it hoveth and is dygne and worthy. And as he sayd that, all the apostles were ravysshed with cloudes from the places where they preched and were brought tofore the dore of the blessyd vyrgyn Mary.... And aboute the thyrde houre of the nyght Jhesu Crist came with swete melodye and songe with the ordre of aungelles.... Fyrst Jhesu Crist began to saye, Come my chosen and I shall set thee in my sete ... come fro Lybane my spouse. Come from Lybane. Come thou shalte be crowned. And she sayd I come, for in the begynnynge of the booke it is wryten of me that I sholde doo thy wyll, for my spyryte hath joyed in thee the God of helth; and thus in the mornynge the soule yssued out of the body and fledde up in the armes of her sone.... And than the apostles toke the body honourably and layde it on the bere.—And than Peter and Paule lyfte up the bere, and Peter began to synge and saye Israhell is yssued out of Egypt, and the other apostles folowed hym in the same songe, and our Lorde covered the bere and the apostles with a clowde, so that they were not seen but the voyce of them was onely herde, and the aungelles were with the apostles syngynge, and than all the people was moved with that swete melodye, and yssued out of the cyte and enquyred what it was.—And than there were some that sayd that Marye suche a woman was deed, and the dyscyples of her sone Jhesu Crist bare her, and made suche melodye. And thenne ranne they to armes and they warned eche other sayenge, Come and let us slee all the dysciples and let us brenne the body of her that bare this traytoure. And whan the prynce of prestes sawe that he was all abashed and, full of angre and wrath sayd, Loo, here the tabernacle of hym that hath troubled us, and our lygnage, beholde what glorye he now receyveth, and in the saynge so he layde his hondes on the bere wyllynge to turne it and overthrowe it to the grounde. Than sodeynly bothe his hondes wexed drye and cleved to the bere so that he henge by the hondes on the bere and was sore tormented and wepte and brayed. And the aungelles ... blynded all the other people that they sawe no thynge. And the prynce of prestes sayd, saynt Peter despyse not me in this trybulacyon, and I praye thee to praye for me to our Lorde.—And saynt Peter sayd to hym—Kysse the bere and saye I byleve in God Jhesu Crist. And whan he had so sayd he was anone all hole perfyghtly.—And thenne the apostles bare Mary unto the monument (in the Vale of Josaphat outside Jerusalem) and satte by it lyke as oure Lord had commaunded. And at the thyrde daye ... the soule came agayne to the body of Marye and yssued gloryously out of the tombe, and thus was receyved in the hevenly chaumbre, and a grete company of aungelles with her; and saynt Thomas was not there; and whan he came he wolde not byleve this; and anone the gyrdell with whiche her body was gyrde came to hym fro the ayre, whiche he receyved, and therby he understode that she was assumpte into heven; and all this it here to fore is sayd and called apocryphum,” &c. ff. ccxvi, &c.
With this key we may easily unlock what, otherwise, would lie hidden, not only about the coronation, but, in an especial manner, the death and burial, as here figured, of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the former of these two is thus represented on the right hand side. In her own small house by the foot of Mount Sion, at Jerusalem, is Christ’s mother on her dying bed. Four only of the apostles—there would not have been room enough for showing more in the quatrefoil—are standing by the couch upon which she lies, dressed in a silver tunic almost wholly overspread with a coverlet of gold; she is bolstered up by a deep purple golden fretted pillow. St. Peter is holding up her head, while by her side stands St. Paul, clad, like St. Peter, in a green tunic and a golden mantle; then St. Matthew, in a blue tunic and a mantle of gold, holding in the left hand his Gospel, which begins with the generation of our Lord as man, and the pedigree of Mary His mother; while, in front of them, stands John, arrayed in a shaded light-purple tunic, youthful in look, and whose auburn hair is in so strong a contrast to the hoary locks of his brethren. On the left-hand side we have her burial. Stretched full-length upon a bier, over which is thrown a pall of green shot with yellow, lies the Virgin Mary, her hair hanging loose from her head. St. Peter, known by his keys, St. Paul, by his uplifted sword, are carrying on their shoulders one end of the bier, in front; behind, in the same office, are St. Andrew bringing his cross with him, and some other apostle as his fellow. After them walks St. Thomas, who, with both his uplifted hands, is catching the girdle as it drops to him from above, where, in the skies, her soul, in the shape of a little child, is seen standing upright with clasped hands, within a large flowing sheet held by two angels who have come from heaven to fetch it thither. Right before the funeral procession is a small Jew, who holds in one hand a scabbard, and with the other is unsheathing his weapon. By the side of the bier stand two other Jews also small in size—one, the high priest. One of them has both his arms, the priest but one, all twisted and shrunken, stretched forward on the bier, as if they wanted to upset it; while the latter holds in one of his wasted hands the green bough of the palm-tree, put into it by St. John.
With regard to St. Thomas and the girdle, this cope, if not the earliest, is among the earlier works upon which that part of the legend is figured, though after a somewhat different manner to the one followed in Italy, where, as is evident from several specimens, in this collection, it found such favour.
Below the burial, we have our Lord in the garden, signified by the two trees (John xx. 17). Still wearing a green crown of thorns, and arrayed in a golden mantle, our Lord in His left hand holds the banner of the resurrection, and with His right bestows His benediction on the kneeling Magdalene, who is wimpled, and wears a mantle of green shot yellow, over a light purple tunic. Below, but outside the quatrefoil, is a layman clad in gold upon his knees, and holding a long narrow scroll, bearing words which cannot now be satisfactorily read. Lowermost of all we see the apostle St. Philip with a book in the left hand, but upon the right, muffled in a large towel wrought in silver, three loaves of bread, done partially in gold, piled up one on the other, in reference to our Lord’s words (John vi. 5), before the miracle of feeding the five thousand. At the left is St. Bartholomew holding a book in one hand, in the other the flaying knife. A little above him, St. Peter with his two keys, one gold, the other silver; and somewhat under him, to the right, is St. Andrew with his cross. On the other side of St. Michael and the dragon is St. James the Greater—sometimes called of Compostella, because he lies buried in that Spanish city—with a book in one hand, and in the other a staff, and slung from his wrist a wallet, both emblems of pilgrimage to his shrine in Galicia. In the next quatrefoil above stands St. Paul with his usual sword, emblem alike of his martyrdom, and of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephes. vi. 17), and a book; lower, to the right, St. Thomas with his lance of martyrdom and a book; and still further to the right, St. James the Less with a book and the club from which he received his death-stroke (Eusebius, book ii. c. 23). Just above is our Saviour clad in a golden tunic, and carrying a staff overcoming the unbelief of St. Thomas. Upon his knees that apostle feels, with his right hand held by the Redeemer, the spear-wound in His side (John xx. 27).
As at the left hand, so here, quite outside the sacred history on the cope, we have the figure of an individual probably living at the time the vestment was wrought. The dress of the other shows him to be a layman; by the shaven crown upon his head, this person must have been a cleric of some sort: but whether monk, friar, or secular we cannot tell, as his gown has become quite bare, so that we see nothing now but the lower canvas with the lines drawn in black for the shading of the folds. Like his fellow over against him, this churchman holds up a scroll bearing words which can no longer be read.